The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought

by Paul L. Gavrilyuk

Overview

This book provides a major reconsideration of the issue of divine suffering and divine emotions in the early Church Fathers. Patristic writers are commonly criticized for falling prey to Hellenistic philosophy and uncritically accepting the claim that God cannot suffer or feel emotions. Gavrilyuk shows that this view represents a misreading of evidence. In contrast, he construes the development of patristic thought as a series of dialectical turning points taken to safeguard the paradox of God's voluntary and salvific suffering in the Incarnation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199269822
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/20/2004
Series:	Oxford Early Christian Studies
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	8.76(w) x 5.66(h) x 0.68(d)

About the Author

Paul L. Gavrilyuk is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology in the University of St Thomas, St Paul, Minnesota.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Testing the fall into Hellenistic philosophy theory2. The function of divine impassibility in patristic theology3. The reality of Christ's suffering defended in the struggle with Docetism4. Patripassian controversy: the Son, not God the Father, is the subject of the Incarnation5. The orthodox response to Arianism: involvement in suffering does not diminish Christ's divinity6. The case of Cyril against Nestorius: a theology of divine self-emptyingConclusion

Editorial Reviews

"[This book] deserves to to be called magisterial, and there are few other treatments of the topic comparably admirable in their combination of reasoned reflection and scrupulous scholarship. ...deserves to be recommended without reservation." —Journal of Religion

From the Publisher